maria isabel singh

Philippians 1:12-18

I don’t want to be single. I don’t want to not know what to do with my life. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t. My pastor shrugged as if in chains when he said sometimes there are places and phases in life you don’t want to be. And for the longest time before this sermon, what riddled me most even more so than my singleness was the fact that I simply didn’t know what to do with my life. I did not know what God wanted me to do.

We know the obvious in these situations–we know the obvious verses. Romans 12:2. Proverbs 3:5-6. Some of my favorite verses, by the way. I mean, I even thought about getting my master’s to capitalize off of something in my current job, thinking that may be the directed path these verses spoke of. But that path went from a master’s, and after a vacation, to community college. Suffice to say, I only lasted a month in community college. Yes, a month. I turned in my annual report and the next day, dropped out faster than I eat honey roasted peanuts.

Prisons can look like many things. For me, this was prison. Now it’s nothing compared to Paul. By all means, no. But it was Paul’s bonds, the Holy Spirit’s words, that made me confident. His Word always proves true even thousands of years down the line. God will send us into the dark places to minister to a jailer, or other prisoners. I mean, how else would the word get to those places anyway? So here I am, my first blog post after a three year hiatus. Completely different. Completely new. And completely loving it.

Here I am seeking to use my journey to encourage and help those in their own prisons of “I don’t knows,” “in-betweens,” and singleness, of course.

So, in conclusion, there’s a little more to be said about my school journey. I have my bachelor’s degree already, but let’s just say I completely botched that time of my life. And it’s like ever since coming to Christ, I thought maybe going back to school would be an arc of redemption.

But what I’ve learned about redemption is that even the small things have already been redeemed in Christ. Sure, sometimes it will be redeemed in the sense you may think. A second chance of sorts. But other times, Christ’s redemptive work can look different. It can look like forgiving your own self for your past mistakes, and for me, more specifically, knowing that it wasn’t that I wasn’t capable of getting good grades, but that I simply did not enjoy school and did not have to go through that route to get to where God will lead me.

I am inspired by those who have found Christ’s strength in a myriad of prisons, and hope that I can inspire you, too.

Much love,

M.I.S